• ☝️ America’s middle class – defined as households making between two-thirds and double the median income – contained ~40% of all US households last year, per Census Bureau data (via The Visual Capitalist).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Tuft & Needle

• 📉 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.3%; Dow: -0.3%; Nasdaq: -0.3%). | 📈 Alphabet shares rose ~6% following Google’s release of Willow, its newest quantum computing chip.
• 🤖🚗 GM is ditching its Cruise robotaxi service in a bid to cut costs; the automaker still plans to develop autonomous driving tech for personal vehicles.
• 📝 Adidas’s German HQ was raided in connection with a tax investigation.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏚️ Bengals QB Joe Burrow’s house was reportedly broken into while he was playing in Monday night’s win; it comes amid a larger string of athlete burglaries linked to a South American crime group, though officials haven’t said whether this incident is related. | 🏀 A.J. Dybantsa, the #1 high school basketball recruit from the Class of 2025 and projected top NBA pick, committed to BYU.
• 🙏 Nikki Giovanni, a renowned poet and icon in the Black Arts Movement, passed away at 81.
• 🏌️ Scottie Scheffler was voted the PGA Tour Player of the Year for a third straight time, joining Tiger Woods as the only golfers to earn this distinction. | 💰 The PGA Tour is reportedly nearing a deal to sell a ~6% minority stake to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which owns LIV Golf.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Sunlighten

• 🌌🔭 The James Webb Space Telescope gathered data appearing to confirm Hubble’s 2011 discovery that the universe is expanding faster than expected, per a new study.
• 🐬 Fentanyl and other drugs are present in tissue samples from dozens of dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, according to local researchers.
• 🏅 Nature’s 10: The annual list of the top 10 people shaping science and technology from one of the leading scientific journals.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🚨 The 26-year-old suspect arrested in connection with the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was charged with murder in New York; the suspect yelled to reporters “It’s completely out of touch and is an insult to the American people and their lived experience” before entering a Pennsylvania court yesterday to contest extradition to New York.
• 📉 American workers are falling behind those in other rich countries in terms of basic skills like creating a complex travel itinerary, reading a thermometer, or finding info from a website, per a new global test of adult know-how.
• 🇨🇳 China deployed nearly 90 naval and coast guard ships for apparent military drills, in its largest maritime exercise around Taiwan and the Western Pacific in nearly 30 years per Taiwanese officials. | 🇧🇷 Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva underwent successful emergency surgery to drain a bleed on his brain; officials say Lula is “well” and currently being monitored in the ICU. | 🇮🇱 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stand yesterday in a corruption trial against him; it marks the first time a sitting Israeli prime minister testified as a criminal defendant.

CLICKBAIT

• 🌆🤗 The most caring cities in America, ranked.